Destructive typhoons are moving poleward. This is the main finding of the study, which documents that the destructive impact of typhoons is moving to new areas on the long-term scale. The study was published by an international team of researchers, led by Jan Altman from the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in the prestigious journal PNAS published by National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Publishing house Academia released book “ Temperate herbs: an architectural analysis“ by Jitka Klimešová who is focusing her research at the Institute of Botany on functional morphology of plants. Rhizomes, tubers, bulbs and roots of herbaceous plants are overlooked not only due to their position in the soil but also because they are wrongly considered unimportant. This book focuses on these belowground organs as they are responsible for key ecological functions of temperate herbs, like overwintering, clonal multiplication and resprouting after disturbance.

In the week of Sept 16-22 2018, scientists from the Department of Functional Ecology of the Institute of Botany in Třeboň (Jitka Klimešová, Jana Martínková, Arinawa Filartiga and Ondřej Mudrák) organised international PhD course of belowground functional ecology “Go Belowground!“. The main goal of the course was to introduce functional importance of overlooked traits on belowground organs like clonal multiplication, bud bank size, and plant longevity.

Environmental controls of raised-bog vegetation in the Baltic boreo-nemoral zone or Diversity and occurrence of herbaceous communities in West African savannas in relation to climate, land use and habitat are among papers published in the new issue of Folia Geobotanica. For contents

A database of Czech flora and vegetation prepared by Masaryk University, the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences and University of South Bohemia has been launched at www.pladias.cz. What can you search for?

A field guide to the flora of the semiarid region in the Transhimalaya of Northwest India by authors from the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences has been published by Academia. It can be widely used also in mountainous areas of West Tibet, Kashmir or Nepal.

In the collection of papers in this special issue on the ecology of clonal plants, several papers that explore new ideas that could inspire further research into the role of clonality in plant ecological strategies have been included. See the contents.

On Thursday, 18 January 2018 the president of the Czech Academy of Sciences Eva Zažímalová presented honorary medals to three distinguished scientists. The Gregor Johann Mendel Honorary Medal for Merit in the Biological Sciences was presented to prof. František Krahulec from Institute of Botany.

A modern synthesis edited by Aaron Ellison, Harvard University, and Lubomír Adamec, Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, has been published by Oxford University Press. With contributions from the world’s leading researchers in the field it summarizes the latest research into the physiology, ecology, systematics and evolution of carnivorous plants and provides an agenda for future research. Find out more.

Radim Hédl from the Institute of Botany participated in a study elucidating mechanisms of functioning of tropical rainforests in Borneo, acting as atmospheric carbon dioxide sink. The study was published in Nature Communications.

The first comprehensive summary on flora and vegetation of the Czech Republic, edited by botanists from Faculty of Science of the Masaryk University and Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences has been published by Springer.

The Highly Cited Researchers list represents some of the world’s most influential scientific minds. These researchers rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in Web of Science. This year, ca 3300 researchers are listed, only 4 of them are from the Czech Republic of which three are from Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences: prof. Vojtěch Jarošík (†2013), prof. Petr Pyšek and Ing. Jan Pergl. Their research focuses mainly on invasion ecology.

The exhibition Stories of the Biological Collections of the CAS is held from 14th November 2017 till 11th February 2018 in the Průhonice Castle. It presents some of the biological collections of the institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences and shows, using specific examples, their practical value for research and development and also in daily life. Open daily 8:00 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Filip Kolář from Institute of Botany was awarded the Award of the CAS for young scientific employees for outstanding results of scientific work, achieved with the financial support of the CAS before reaching the age of 35. His work focuses on evolutionary response of plants to quaternary climatic oscilaltions. Click here to see a list of his publications.

In the last week of September, ecologists from Institute of Botany in Trebon organized, with financial support from the Czech Academy of Sciences, an international PhD course focused on practical assessment of functional traits on belowground plant organs. The name of the course “Go belowground” is highlighting the fact that the main focus of the course are wrongly overlooked belowground plant organs, roots and rhizomes.

Longitudinal changes in species composition of forests and grasslands across the North Asian forest steppe zone and The role of abiotic and biotic factors in functional structure and processes of alpine subshrub communities are just two examples of papers published in the new issue of Folia Geobotanica, the journal of the Institute of Botany of the CAS. More here.